KC Man Admits to Invading Computers at UCM

A 21-year-old hacker named Daniel J. Fowler acknowledged that he along with one more ex-student connived over one full year since March 2009 over infiltrating the computer network of University of Central Missouri (UCM) and pulling down huge databases on faculty, students, staff and alumni that they subsequently attempted at selling, thus published Kansa City in news on June 22, 2011.

Fowler acknowledged that he created a PC-virus, which he employed for contaminating campus PCs, one of them belonging to the UCM president, the Office of U.S. Attorney said.

He also acknowledged that the virus was loaded onto an external device to help install it on various PCs within the campus. Sometimes, Fowler and his accomplice told infected users that they had vacation photographs on their thumb drive for display, but when they plugged it into their victims' PCs it gave them access to those systems.

Specifically, on loading the malware, the conspirators gained access to the contaminated PCs, seized users' keystrokes, downloaded files as also switched on web-cameras.

Moreover, during Nov 2009, as per the allegations, both Fowler and accomplice attempted at compromising a PC deployed at the office of the UCM president. Apparently Camp directed an admin helper for inserting the external device into his PC. Next month, the connivance got revealed when New York's federal agents caught Camp and detained him in Rochester following his offer to provide them 90,000 identification details for $35,000 from the data on UCM network, court records indicated.

Stated prosecutors that Fowler and accomplice effectively loaded the virus onto the PC of at least 1 UCM admin followed with filching one director's (residence hall) login credentials. Ultimately, with unauthorized access, they carried out fake financial transactions that enabled them to move funds into other bank accounts under their regulation. Additionally, they even tried selling a personal information database that they'd obtained via stealing.

The pair was arrested, despite that, they continued their conspiracy. When Fowler came to know of a co-worker turning on him, he wrote a threatening note on Facebook that if a trial were to start it would bring the informant in news.